The Raíces Unidas team, consisting of Raul Lopez, Alexis Robledo and Ryan Arias, meets with investor Glenn Schroeder at Fresno State University’s Water and Energy Technology Center. The company, which specializes in financial literacy in Latino communities, is a resident at the WET Center. Photo by Ben Hensley.
Author: Ben Hensley
Just ask any innovative business owner with a brand new idea: starting a business is hard.
From the risk of putting your own capital at risk to the time and effort it takes to make a slim chance work, the road to entrepreneurship is paved with the debris of those who came, tried, and failed.
At the Philip J. Patino School of Entrepreneurship in Fresno, the road to entrepreneurial success is paved with something special. Staff, students, and even established entrepreneurs are all trying to help each other succeed not only in their schooling but also in their entrepreneurial journey.
Three Patiño High School students recently took a step toward becoming successful entrepreneurs in the Valley region.
Raíces Unidas aims to serve as a financial literacy platform for the Latino community, and founders Raul Lopez, Alexis Robledo, and Ryan Arias all come from Latino families and have seen firsthand what a lack of financial literacy means in their community.
Local competition
Earlier this month, Quiq Labs, a local company focused on developing young entrepreneurs through technology, marketing and collaborative innovation, hosted its second student pitch competition.
This year’s competition saw six groups from Patino High School each pitch their business idea to a panel of five judges for a chance to win up to $3,500 to invest in their business.
“Being an entrepreneur myself, this is really important,” says Lucy G. Alvarado, president of 59 Days of Code and a judge for the pitch competition. “Having someone like Quiq Labs really acts as a guide and gives you some kind of direction.”
Raíces Unidas won second place in the competition, behind Fortaleza, a protein-based ice cream business. Raíces Unidas also won the “People’s Choice” award and was given the opportunity to present their business to real local investors.
One such investor was Fresno State University’s Water, Energy and Technology Center, better known as the WET Center.
Though typically focused on agricultural entrepreneurship, Glen Schrader, one of the center’s leading innovators, saw the Raíces Unidas business model and offered the trio of young entrepreneurs the deal of a lifetime: a 5% equity investment in the business, including workspace on campus at Fresno State’s WET Center.
Next steps
With the office space and an additional $600 investment from the WET Center for a total of $3,600, Raíces Unidas was given the opportunity to tour the facility last week and choose their workspace, as well as learn more about what the WET Center does and how the center and other innovators can help them grow and leverage their business models.
One of the WET Center’s flagship initiatives, the Valley Ventures Accelerator, has run seven groups of early-stage founders primarily focused on solutions in the agtech space.
Eric Hadden, director of the WET Centre, said one of the things the centre hopes to achieve going forward is to attract more local talent.
“We haven’t had a lot of home-grown entrepreneurs,” Hadden said. “We’d like to see more people coming out of Fresno State or the Patino School and bringing their ideas to life here.”
Hadden said the centre has played a role in developing businesses from around the country, and even some international companies, but there has been a recent lack of investment in local talent.
“There are places like California where entrepreneurship is the norm. In the Bay Area, entrepreneurship is something you do, something you pursue,” Hadden continued. “Because of the economic constraints in this area, it’s not something you can necessarily pursue because, quite frankly, you need to get a job.”
With the investment from the WET Center, Hadden and Schrader hope to continue attracting young local entrepreneurs.
First attempt
The WET Center’s investment makes Raíces Unidas the first group of high school students the center has invested in.
Now that that limit has been broken, the young entrepreneurs have no plans to stop expanding their business there. They also recently received $2,000 from the Fresno Area Hispanic Foundation and $1,500 from a local business, in addition to prize money won in a student presentation contest.
All of these funds will be used to expand the business and in the future, the company hopes to provide free financial literacy education to users through app- and web-based videos and courses.
Hadden emphasized the important role that WET centers can play in educating young entrepreneurs while also mitigating some of the inherent risks associated with starting a business.
Additionally, the center offers an environment similar to that found at Patiño High School, where budding entrepreneurs have the opportunity to develop ideas and business models with many other entrepreneurs under the same roof.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to be one of the first,” said Raíces Unidas CEO Raul Lopez, “and it’s exciting for all three of us to be invited into a space like the WET Center to continue collaborating with like-minded people.”
